Putin's Fear of Attacks on Victory Day Behind Abrupt Ceasefire: Kyiv
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Russia's declaration of a unilateral ceasefire in Ukraine for three days next month was met with skepticism by Ukraine.
The Kremlin declared a ceasefire on Monday to observe the 80th anniversary of the Great Patriotic War. This is the term used by Russia to describe its participation in World War II after it joined the Allies in 1941, and the victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. Moscow has consistently claimed its invasion of Ukraine aimed to "de-Nazify" the country, a pretext widely rejected.
Russia will not conduct any military operations between midnight on May 8 and midnight on May 11, the Kremlin said, adding that "Russia believes that the Ukrainian side should follow this example."
Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely hoping to head off any possible Ukrainian attacks on May 9, when Russia typically hosts major celebrations, said Oleksandr Merezkho, the head of Ukraine's parliamentary foreign affairs committee and a member of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's party.
It is a "purely propagandistic gesture," Merezkho told Newsweek.
The United States has become increasingly irritated with the glacial pace of progress towards implementing a ceasefire agreement, more overtly criticizing Russia's recalcitrance to ink a deal despite pursuing a rapprochement with the Kremlin.
President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, arrived in Moscow on Friday for a fourth visit to Russia since January in a bid to move negotiations forward with senior Kremlin aides.
Ukraine agreed to a 30-day ceasefire during talks with the U.S. in March.
In a separate incident on Friday, a senior Russian commander who had been involved in failed talks with Ukraine after Moscow annexed Crimea from Kyiv in 2014 was killed after a car bomb exploded in an eastern suburb of Moscow.
Russia's FSB security agency said it had detained a "resident of Ukraine," named as Ignat Kuzin. Russian authorities claimed Kuzin was recruited as a Ukrainian spy in April 2023.
Russian servicemen fire a D-20 howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in Russia's Kursk area on April 9, 2025.
Russian servicemen fire a D-20 howitzer towards Ukrainian positions in Russia's Kursk area on April 9, 2025.
Sergey Bobylev / Sputnik via AP
Ukraine does not typically comment publicly on suspected participation in high-profile assassinations.
Putin's "previous unilateral declarations of ceasefire never worked," Merezkho said.
Russia announced earlier this month it would halt all military operations against Ukraine for 30 hours to mark Easter. Reports trickling out of Ukraine suggested that the hundreds of miles of front lines were quieter than usual, but both sides accused each other of violating the ceasefire.
Monday's proclamation appears similar to the short-lived Easter truce, said Gabrielius Landsbergis, who served as Lithuania's foreign minister until November 2024.
It is unlikely that further progress will be made towards a ceasefire deal involving both countries, Landsbergis told Newsweek.
"If Russia truly wants peace, it must cease fire immediately," Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said in a post on social media on Monday afternoon. "Why wait until May 8th? If the fire can be ceased now and since any date for 30 days—so it is real, not just for a parade."
Merezkho said he had expected some form of announcement from the Kremlin in the lead-up to the pageantry surrounding May 9 in Russia.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Trump wanted a more permanent end to the more than three years of fighting, adding the president was "increasingly frustrated" with both Kyiv and Moscow.
Trump has skirted hitting Putin with scathing criticism over the Kremlin's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, but has publicly berated Ukraine's Zelensky.
Trump met with Zelensky one-on-one as both leaders traveled to the Vatican for Pope Francis' funeral on Saturday.
Trump, just before sharing images of himself and Zelensky hunched over in conversation, said in a post on Truth Social that there was "no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days."
"It makes me think that maybe he doesn't want to stop the war, he's just tapping me along," Trump said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that he believed the coming week would be "very critical" for ceasefire talks, while Washington weighs whether negotiating an end to the war is an "endeavour that we want to continue to be involved in."
Putin's declaration of an Easter ceasefire came shortly after Rubio told reporters the U.S. would walk away from talks if a deal couldn't be reached quickly.
The Kremlin reiterated on Monday that it sought to eliminate what it termed the "root causes behind the Ukraine crisis."
Russia has laid out extensive conditions for its consent to a ceasefire in Ukraine, many of which have been flatly ruled out by Kyiv, including the dismantling of its military, no path toward NATO membership, and recognition of Russia's grip on seized territory.
Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukraine, which Kyiv has vowed to reclaim. Trump officials have signaled that a ceasefire could recognize Russian control over territory it has seized until now and freeze the conflict along the current front lines.
The Kremlin said on Monday it would respond to any violations of the unilateral ceasefire by Ukraine.
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